Lucky Seven
by Fwe
Summary: Rituals are funny things. They can last only a little while, or they can last your entire life. Rikku thought she could have kept this one up forever.


**Lucky Seven**

Summary: Six moments in Rikku's life… And the one that keeps her going.

A/N: I refuse to acknowledge X-2's existence… this time! For an Aurikku contest on LJ, but it's more of a friendship thing than anything else. Don't eat me! It's a little (the tiniest bit!) AU, but nothing too bad...

0O0

* * *

One

* * *

Rikku was five. Maybe a few months ago she could have said otherwise, but now she could hold up her entire hand when people asked her age. For now, she was wild, running anywhere she wanted and holding her father's hand most of the time. No one ever said that being daddy's little girl was so bad – and if they did, well, she'd probably be putting water in their motor oil when she was twelve, anyway. 

Five and two months, she held onto Vydran's hand in the large hall and watched as the people buzzed around. Someone shouted this, someone shouted that. Cid laughed.

_Laughed._

Only her pops could laugh like that when there were guards threatening to shoot the people in their living room into splatty messes; This was back when he'd had hair and a few more things to laugh about.

Rikku watched, fascinated, swinging her beaded pigtails all around as though this were somehow glamorous and tried harder than ever to understand what was happening. She knew even then that there wasn't much time to stare. After all, daddy's little girls don't get stuck in crossfire.

There were three of them there (two less than five), pointed at by ten or so rifles. One looked like a pirate – or what she thought pirates looked like – all scarred up and tattooed. He winked at her with one eye still on her father and smiled. His face looked a little like leather.

Beside him stood a tall man, though he was probably the smallest of the band. He stood straight as a tail feather, looking just as able to float away. In his hand he held a large staff, probably the only thing he could find. It looked a little shoddy, even to her tiny eyes. This man held his hand out in a greeting, seeming to refrain from something else, and said a few words that instantly turned her attention elsewhere – it would be four more years before she could speak anything but Al Bhed, and this was as good as hearing dogs bark. To her astonishment, though, her father spoke right back and then moved forward to clasp the hand before him. Had Rikku been a little older, she might have seen something other than surprise in everyone else's eyes. Rin, the shop boy, seemed to be the only one who smiled.

"It's been a long time," her father said. He waved his hand a bit, moving the guards off. With a quirk of his eyebrow, he gestured downward. "Have ya met Rikku?"

The wispy man smiled, bowing his head, and came to a kneel before her. "A pleasure," he said. He spoke with a strange accent, but it was understandable. The little girl poked him with a chubby finger, then, smiling wickedly, ran to give him a hug.

A little surprised, the man grunted, but he smiled widely in return. "She looks like her mother." This seemed to bring him some sort of pleasure, as he pulled back to look her more fully in the face. "You are going to grow up to be a lovely young woman," he told her. Turning back to Cid, he was puzzled to see a strange look upon the other man's face. "Have I said something wrong?" It had gotten a little quiet, but Rikku was staring at the man in red – the quiet one in the corner.

"Nah." Cid rubbed the back of his head and looked to the side – a secret-telling glance if Rikku had ever seen one. Never one to be out on something like that, she once again put her attention to her father. Abruptly, Cid looked down. "How about showin' them two around the place?" He pointed to the pirate and man in red. "Think ya can handle it?"

Rikku nodded quickly, going to grab the men's hands – new friends were more important than secrets apparently – and she gasped as her feet peddled mid-air, shirt yanked in a bunch behind her. Cid held on tightly, staring at her with a strange mix of pride and reprove. "Hey now," he said, "Where ye think yer goin' with that money in yer pocket?"

Rikku shrugged, still suspended, and blinked. "What money?" She should have known by now that the 'innocent face' wasn't going to work on him, but she tried it anyway. From her side, Braska lifted her up. He smiled as Cid let her go.

"I think he means the money you took from my pocket."

Frowning now in his calm face, Rikku pouted her lip. "Do I hafta?" How was she going to get any better at this if she wasn't allowed to practice, anyway?

Cid frowned, and Braska laughed. Eyes soft, he leaned forward and held up something long. "I think this is yours," he said. Rikku's feet slowed their dangling from his arms. Frowning, she looked to Cid.

"He stole my necklace," she said. "That's not fair."

Unexpectedly, Braska laughed again. It was a soft sound, and Rikku knew immediately that she would always like him. "On the contrary," he said. "I believe you lost it while you were… _pilfering_ my gil." He gave her an even softer smile, and Rikku gently took her necklace back. Braska made a show of not patting her on the head as he set her back upon the floor. "Does that teach you anything?" The tone of voice was more inquisitive than accusing.

Rikku moved back, giving his two companions a wary look. "I gotta be sneakier with you."

For a moment, there was silence, and then Braska smiled. Better than anything else, he laughed until she did, too.

* * *

Two

* * *

There was a bazaar on the side of Mi'ihen Highroad once a year. Most people thought it was a black market, and so it turned out that only thieves and Al Bhed came. The truth was, it was the only place where everyone was allowed. Luca citizens, the Hypello of the Moonflow, Guado, Human, Al Bhed. Hardly any Ronso came, but when they did, the Gagazet stands were full. 

When Rikku was twelve, her father took two supply ships with him and came back with so many gadgets her eyes could have shriveled from staring so long. The new things weren't Machina, and they certainly weren't Al Bhed. Silks and strings, beads and glasses, suits and dresses and – oh, for all of the gil in the world, she couldn't have counted them all. Pops said that he'd bought most of the stuff because he'd make a good return on it all the next year – "After all, them Yevonites ain't gonna be buying these accelerators, now are they?" – but Brother, in an odd fifteen-year-old mood, said it was for another reason entirely.

It was a taste of the world that most of them couldn't travel in freely. A taste of something bigger; something exciting.

There was something about that that made Rikku want more. Like somehow there should have been something that she could do. Something she could try.

Her father gave her a Besaidian bracelet later, after Brother had shocked her with Thunder in the sea. He'd placed it upon her wrist himself, tying the blue-green knot tightly next to the one her mother had given her. It looked strange and gaudy, but Rikku thanked him anyway.

"Someone told me to give ya that, when I thought ya were ready. Don't go gettin' it messed up, now, though, ya hear?"

It didn't strike her until much later that there had been no one from Besaid at the Bazaar that year, and that she had seen it before, on the wrist of a long-dead summoner.

* * *

Three

* * *

"Yer cousin's goin' on the pilgrimage."

* * *

Four

* * *

Rikku prayed to the Aeons every morning. 

Her mother had prayed to Shiva, her father to Bahamut. Brother had prayed to Ixion, and she still knew them all.

Yevonites thought they were the only ones who did it, and perhaps only the Maesters knew that Aeons had been around longer than even Yevon had. The Al Bhed knew better, but then again, they almost always did.

On her sixteenth birthday, she was supposed to choose only one to pray to – just one to give her undying faith to, and let the rest hang in the background of her memory until the Prayer Days.

Two days after Guadosalam, they'd reached Rin's shop on the Thunder Plains, and the day after, she realized that for the last three days that she'd been another year older.

Sixteen and three days.

She sat upon the floor of the Traveling Agency and almost started to cry. Throat tight, hands shaking, she was already half way there from the storm.

"You don't have time for that, ye big dummy," she told herself. True, she'd missed her day, but that wasn't so bad, was it? She was helping someone – hey, why wouldn't the Aeons understand that?

She hoped they would, at least.

_Boom, boom._ Quietly, she stood. Down the hall, to the last and only door next to hers, she walked. The shadows flickered with electricity. Nearby, someone snored, and she wondered how anyone could sleep in this. It was almost like sleeping through a war. Jumping, her heart felt like a motor in her chest. She turned to the door, more focused than before and a little more afraid.

"Auron?" she whispered. It was past midnight – only a few hours left for this. Standing in that hall, she had the horrible feeling that she was the only one still awake. There was a groan behind the thunder – a floorboard, and although she couldn't quite believe it, the door opened before she got a chance to knock. Standing there, tall and somehow a little less threatening without his glasses, Auron squinted at her quietly.

"Yes?" His voice was crackly like the storm.

Rikku winced. "Were you asleep?" It certainly didn't look like it, but – _boom, boom_ – then again, she could understand why. At the raise of an eyebrow, she gave a nervous giggle. She'd known all of them coming on a week and a half, but somehow that didn't seem to be enough to do what she planned.

'I should have asked Kimahri,' she thought to herself, jumping again as the lightening struck outside. The Ronso probably would have been a bit more understanding.

Auron gave a small grunt of impatience. "You should be asleep," he said. It wasn't a suggestion.

Rikku stood back and grimaced, fighting the urge to stick her tongue out. This was Serious Time. This was You- Need- To- Be- Nice- So- People- Will- Help- You time. Still, she rolled her eyes as he stared back.

Jittery, she took a breath and got to the point. "So, there's this thing that I need to do, right? And –it's really random, and you so totally don't have to help me, but it would be really nice of you, you know – if you would help, that is. I mean, I probably could have waited until morning and everything, but I'm three days late already and… um…" He was giving her a strange look through all of her babbling. She sighed and tried again. "I need your help with a ceremony." It felt like her heart might jump out through her nose.

Auron gave a grunt and shifted. "This can't wait?" No questions on why it was him. No questions on what exactly it was.

Rikku gulped. "No." Why had she picked him, anyway?

Shaking his head, Auron moved out of the doorway and let her through.

That night, he helped her choose Ixion, and in the morning she thought something else might have happened, too.

* * *

Five

* * *

They'd killed Yunalesca. Something the man who'd given Rikku her bracelet didn't do. Something the other man by her side hadn't done either. Something they both should have done. 

Yuna'd looked at the spot where the woman's pyreflies had dissipated, and they'd stayed the night in that spot, too tired to move on. It was strange in that room, the ceiling too tall and full of either real space or what looked like stars flittering up above. Around them hummed dying-fiend sounds – Farplane sounds – but that was probably all in her head.

"Yunie?" she whispered. Most of them were asleep save herself and Auron, and he was in a strange mood. Off by himself, he kept staring into the abyss.

Below her, Yuna refused to stir, and Rikku didn't have the heart to move her. Instead, she crept down to the floor, lay there on the cold stone, and stared at her cousin's tired face. She wondered how tired she herself looked.

"Yunie," Rikku said again. They were so close now, and she wondered silently if any of them had really known what they'd get into when they'd come along.

They'd torn down their own religion, torn down Yunalesca, and now what did they have?

No way to defeat Sin; no one to believe in to save them. Rikku sat there blinking, feeling foolish and selfish at the same time. She'd never thought Yevon was a god; had never believed that this was the only way. Beside Tidus and Auron, the rest of them had been the only ones hurt. To tell the truth, Rikku felt like she had been, too. So many people…

"I know you wouldn't want it, but I'm gonna do somethin' for you, okay?" she whispered. Taking the aquamarine bracelet from her wrist, she gave it a kiss and made a tight knot at the base of Yuna's hand. It looked prettier on her, and if anyone deserved a gift from Braska, it was his own daughter. Kissing her cousin's forehead – too lightly to wake the young woman up – Rikku whispered words Auron had told her just a short time ago. "I give you Valefor. May it protect you through every trouble and give you light in your dark." Moving closer, she laid her head upon the ground. "Sleep sweetly," she said.

Those were old words, Al Bhed words, and the only hope Rikku could have given. It was the only faith any of them had left.

* * *

Six

* * *

When Rikku was sixteen, her heart fell bottom-out. That was the end of Sin. The end of Auron, the end of Tidus. The end of Yevon and Pilgrimages and twenty-seven thousand other things. 

Yuna was happy and sad and confused, and the world – the world wasn't the same in any sort of way. So many people had no faith, yet so many people clung to what they'd had before. Every day, Rikku still prayed to Ixion, and it was a clockwork thing that Yuna did, too.

In all of this, Rikku started a new tradition, perhaps only one of ten million other people who had done the same thing. On the summer of her nineteenth year, she visited the Mi'ihen market – for the first time in her life and for the first time it had been held during the day.

She visited the Al Bhed stands, the Lucan, the Hypello, the million other types. There were no Ronso there, nor Guado, and somewhere along the lines she'd noticed the absence of anyone from, Kilika. Their economy had gone to pot four years earlier, it seemed.

With what little gil she had, she bought six small things and one large one, placing them in the large sack hanging over her shoulder. In a week or so, she traveled to Besaid and Gagazet, calling it a national holiday each time, and told her friends happy birthday as they accepted their gifts with puzzled glances. Over time, they got used to it, but she never told them what they were for.

One for Kimahri, one for Yuna, Wakka, Lulu, and herself. That left two.

Three guesses who they were for.

Down on the coast of Bikanel, twelve miles from where the Al Bhed had relocated, she sat by the sea. Maybe she was being silly, but it still didn't feel right going into the Farplane by herself.

"Here I am again," she'd said. "I hope you guys like the sea." If they didn't, she guessed she'd never know. Taking her pack off, she placed it upon the sand and blessed it with a luck spell. After that, she would lay back and wait until sunset came.

Rituals are funny things. They can last only a little while, or they can last your entire life. Some people give up before they even start. Rikku thought she could have kept this up forever.

"It feels right," she told herself – and maybe Wakka once when she'd lost a drinking match. It felt like all of the best feelings in the world just to remember someone when they were gone. They weren't really dead that way, and she could keep talking to them until her face turned blue.

When the sea was red enough and large enough, and when the sun was just so low enough that she could feel the warmth shining right on the horizon, she took from her pocket the last two gifts. In her palm – _tiny, tiny, tiny_ – they were only two, small, wooden beads; two names written upon them in Al Bhed.With her knife, she dug her own name on the side.

From her pack, she pulled out the last thing: A sake jug. She unplugged its top and poured its contents onto the ground.  
With careful, always slightly-shaking hands, she placed the beads inside and tried to smile as they fell into the bottom, just a little ways down.

She placed the cap into her pocket and gently set the jug into the sea. Sitting back again, she watched it drift until it was either too small to see or too sunk beneath the surface to ever get back.

The sun set each day as she sat on this beach, and she never did cry. To Ixion, she sang the hymn, and told herself she was happy.

Maybe, just a little too much, she was.

* * *

_(There was thunder in the air, but for the first time all night, she felt safe and warm. "Hey, Auron…? Why'd you pick Ixion?"_

_The man in red shrugged. "As much as you fear thunder, I think it suits you best."_

_Sixteen plus three, she fell asleep knowing he was right.)_

* * *

0O0 

A/N: Was that as pointless to you as it was to me? Ooh… I feel a little idiotic. And this really needs an edit... if anyone's offering. ;) If there are any mysterious mentionings of fruit, tell me... Concrit will be rewarded with my eternal gratitude!


End file.
